The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [7]
The rearmost guest turned his head from watching the passage, and he and his fellow doffed their cowls together.
"Maerlin," Baron Glarond greeted the foremost man politely. They shared faint smiles that their eyes did not echo, and the Baron Urwythe Maerlin lifted a many-ringed hand in an almost idle wave. "My Court Mage," he said, "Corloun."
The wizard was burly, with hair the hue of dirty straw, and pale gray eyes like chips of ice. His greeting was a blunt question. "You are alone?"
Glarond smiled faintly. "Hardly."
The mage's hands moved in hurried gestures, shaping a shielding magic that would foil those who watched and listened both from a nearby chamber or by spell, from afar. Its flowering became a sudden flurry of flamelike radiances in the air around Corloun, a sign that it was clawing vainly at an already active shielding magic that would prevent it from forming. The wizard lifted his head to give the Baron Glarond a frown. "You work magic?"
The baron gave him that same faint smile once more, and said almost gently, "Evidently."
Corloun's face darkened with irritation and he opened his mouth to speak, but Baron Maerlin put a hand on the wizard's arm in what was evidently a command for silence. His neat goatee and round face gave him a feline look as he advanced a step and asked, "You've heard the latest, I presume?"
Glarond nodded. "My eyes at court are as attentive as yours. I was spellspoken no more than a few breaths after our Risen King finished shocking the assembled."
"As was I," Maerlin said, turning to pace across the room. "Fresh oaths for us all-fresh insults-and a recrowning that must not be allowed to happen."
Maerlin's wizard took a smooth step to one side, to where he could face both men clearly. Corloun kept his hands out of sight in the folds of his robe, doubtless holding some magic ready, but neither baron spared him a glance.
The Lord of Glarond folded his arms calmly across his chest. "Making this meeting rather more urgent."
Maerlin shook his head in mounting anger rather than disagreement, and let bitterness creep into his voice. "He'll put his toadies into Silvertree, Blackgult, and Brightpennant, and probably Phelinndar and Tarlagar, too, cow Adeln and probably Loushoond into doing whatever he says-and we'll never have room or coin enough to whelm swords against him."
"Whelm we must," Glarond replied, and lifted his lip in a sneering smile as he added, "as any prudent Vale ruler must do forthwith, with Serpent-priests on the move again, bustling here and everywhere with blades and dark spells and hired cabals. Defending our land is but our duty."
Maerlin let a smile devoid of mirth pass across his face. "Excuse enough," he agreed, "because it's true. Without the Scaled Ones, our vigilance could be much less-and any of us recruiting hireswords would sound a clear warning of war. Whereas Ornentar's desperate entreaties reveal that one of us has already in secret hired the famous Swords of Sirlptar… and this news leaves us all unsurprised." He fixed the other baron with a level gaze and asked, "Think you any of us are foolish-or desperate-enough to try to take the Serpents as allies?"
Glarond shrugged. "Ornentar, perhaps. Stripped of his wizards and his warswords, he may prefer holding a treacherous blade to facing us all empty-handed."
"The Serpents rise and fall, but I've never heard them saying the Snake itself will roam the Vale before," Maerlin said, pacing again. "Is this them merely using fear as a sword, d'you think?"
Glarond shrugged. "The tales say if the Sleeping King is awake, so is the Serpent. True or not, it forces us all to hire and train and warm our armor-forges-and when we're all excited, our ears are ready for the whispers of priests seeking to set us at each other's throats."
"Are they mad?" Maerlin snarled. "Why destroy Aglirta? How does that win them anything worth having power over?"
Glarond shrugged. "Wizard,"